After 13 years of playoff frustration – and an 0-6 record in those win-or-go-home games – many Dallas Cowboys fans look at tonight’s game against Philadelphia with cautious optimism and a healthy respect for the past.

That’s Joe DeCaro’s take, anyway, and this lifelong Cowboys fan from New York City – a staff blogger for lonestarstruck.com – can’t understand it.

“In our weekly chats, it seems very, very few are taking the plunge and getting excited,” said DeCaro, “JoeD” to his readers. “It’s like they don’t want to jinx it.”

That’s understandable.

Sure, the ‘Boys beat the Eagles twice this year, including Sunday’s thumping in Arlington, the site of tonight’s game. And the Cowboys are on a roll, winners of three straight, two of them shutouts and the third against the previously undefeated New Orleans Saints.

The running game is clicking, Tony Romo seems to have an answer for any defensive scheme and the Cowboys “D” has been lights out. What could possibly go wrong?

Oh yeah, there was that game against the New York Giants on Jan. 13, 2008, their third matchup of the year. The high-flying Cowboys won the first two. They lost the one that really counted.

The fans haven’t forgotten.

To DeCaro, though, that was then and this is now.

Just as spring brings hope to every baseball fan, even in North Texas, DeCaro figures the parity found throughout the NFL means a few off-season changes can lift last year’s losers right into the playoff race.

“I’m very optimistic and have been all year,” he said. “I figured playoffs and believed we’d win the NFC East, no doubt about it.”

But when he saw the enthusiasm of fans in Philadelphia and New York, and then looked at Dallas, “I wondered, ‘Where’s the noise?’ “